People ask me: where do you get all those scans? Well, anytime you see one in color I scanned it myself from something probably bought on Ebay over the last 15 years. Every once in a while, the Ebay seller makes such good scans I don't even have to buy his strips. I think I showed a run of Smokey Bear that way once, and here is a set of Mike Roy's Nero Wolfe Sunday strips from the same conscientious seller. I am glad I didn;t have to buy them, because this strip is quite in demand and fetched a good price without me joining in. The later Sundays were pencilled by Mike Sekowsky but I don't think it shows yet in these samples (possibly only in the last one).
Showing posts with label Mike Sekowsky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mike Sekowsky. Show all posts
Thursday, November 02, 2017
King Of The Roys
Thursday Story Strip Day.
People ask me: where do you get all those scans? Well, anytime you see one in color I scanned it myself from something probably bought on Ebay over the last 15 years. Every once in a while, the Ebay seller makes such good scans I don't even have to buy his strips. I think I showed a run of Smokey Bear that way once, and here is a set of Mike Roy's Nero Wolfe Sunday strips from the same conscientious seller. I am glad I didn;t have to buy them, because this strip is quite in demand and fetched a good price without me joining in. The later Sundays were pencilled by Mike Sekowsky but I don't think it shows yet in these samples (possibly only in the last one).
People ask me: where do you get all those scans? Well, anytime you see one in color I scanned it myself from something probably bought on Ebay over the last 15 years. Every once in a while, the Ebay seller makes such good scans I don't even have to buy his strips. I think I showed a run of Smokey Bear that way once, and here is a set of Mike Roy's Nero Wolfe Sunday strips from the same conscientious seller. I am glad I didn;t have to buy them, because this strip is quite in demand and fetched a good price without me joining in. The later Sundays were pencilled by Mike Sekowsky but I don't think it shows yet in these samples (possibly only in the last one).
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
To Use Or Not To Use
Wednesday Advertising Day.
As I promised last week, I will use the tradition advertising post on Wednesday to show your some of the stuff Craig Yoe and I didn't include in Behaving Madly, the Mad Magazine Imitation book coming out from IDW one of these days. Craig and I will be signing the first copies at the IDW booth at the San Diego Comic Con on Friday from 1 to 2.
Going through all the magazines involved, it struck me taht some movies and some tv shows were parodied more often than others. In the book we included one parody of the Glen Ford movie Blackboard Jungle, a marvelous piece by Art Gates for Crazy, Man, Crazy. But there were also parodies of this movie in Snafu (by Russ Heath) and Mad itself. Of course we couldn't use the Mad parody (by Walace Wood) and the Russ Heath one was printed very badly in all of the samples we found. And fortunately we were able to include a lot more terrific stuff by Heath anyway.
Another tv phenomenon spoofed a lot was the $64.000. Before the fraud scandal broke, many people were suspicious of the program. And some pretty good artists were involved. Ross Andru did one for Lunatickle in the style of Kurtzman's Mad magazine parodies, Mike Sekowsky a more illustrative one for Cockeyed and even Art Gates got into the game with a short parody for Crazy, Man, Crazy. We ended up using none of them, because Andru's was a bit too long (so we included a funny image from one of his other long parodies), Mike Sekowsky's not funny enough (but we did include a large illustration from it) and Art Gates was already given his due.
This may seem unfortunate, but I think it worked out fine. The book represents the best of the genre and is already being reviewed positively for some of it's more unique surprises. If we would have filled the book with sample after sample it would have hurt the impact from the ones we do have. In the forty page introduction I have taken care to describe every title so you will know what's in what and if you want to go and buy some more, you will know what to choose. That way we have hopefully made a book that caters to the collectors and the unitiated in an equal way.
But enough with the apologies, here are the stories.
As I promised last week, I will use the tradition advertising post on Wednesday to show your some of the stuff Craig Yoe and I didn't include in Behaving Madly, the Mad Magazine Imitation book coming out from IDW one of these days. Craig and I will be signing the first copies at the IDW booth at the San Diego Comic Con on Friday from 1 to 2.
Going through all the magazines involved, it struck me taht some movies and some tv shows were parodied more often than others. In the book we included one parody of the Glen Ford movie Blackboard Jungle, a marvelous piece by Art Gates for Crazy, Man, Crazy. But there were also parodies of this movie in Snafu (by Russ Heath) and Mad itself. Of course we couldn't use the Mad parody (by Walace Wood) and the Russ Heath one was printed very badly in all of the samples we found. And fortunately we were able to include a lot more terrific stuff by Heath anyway.
Another tv phenomenon spoofed a lot was the $64.000. Before the fraud scandal broke, many people were suspicious of the program. And some pretty good artists were involved. Ross Andru did one for Lunatickle in the style of Kurtzman's Mad magazine parodies, Mike Sekowsky a more illustrative one for Cockeyed and even Art Gates got into the game with a short parody for Crazy, Man, Crazy. We ended up using none of them, because Andru's was a bit too long (so we included a funny image from one of his other long parodies), Mike Sekowsky's not funny enough (but we did include a large illustration from it) and Art Gates was already given his due.
This may seem unfortunate, but I think it worked out fine. The book represents the best of the genre and is already being reviewed positively for some of it's more unique surprises. If we would have filled the book with sample after sample it would have hurt the impact from the ones we do have. In the forty page introduction I have taken care to describe every title so you will know what's in what and if you want to go and buy some more, you will know what to choose. That way we have hopefully made a book that caters to the collectors and the unitiated in an equal way.
But enough with the apologies, here are the stories.
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Crop of the Creme
Friday Comic Book Day.
Common knowledge has it that Stan Lee wrote all of the stories in Menace because he wanted a book of his own. If that is true, these three stories from Marvel Tales #113 may have been the impetus. They are from the same creative period with job numbers slightly before those of Menace. And as with those titles, he only used the best artists for himself: here he works with Mike Sekowsky, Werner Roth and Russ Heath.
Common knowledge has it that Stan Lee wrote all of the stories in Menace because he wanted a book of his own. If that is true, these three stories from Marvel Tales #113 may have been the impetus. They are from the same creative period with job numbers slightly before those of Menace. And as with those titles, he only used the best artists for himself: here he works with Mike Sekowsky, Werner Roth and Russ Heath.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Mikefest
Thursday Story Strip Day
Here's another batch that came from my recent scanning activities witj a credit question. Mike Roy is credited with the creation of the short running comic strip version of novel detective Nero Wolfe. Original writer Rex Stout also lend his name to it, but it is doubtful he did more than have a look. After a year or so, Roy left the art to others, including Fran Matera and someone called Christiansen, but even before that he didn't do it all by himself. Mike Peppe has been mentioned as an inker and here in these pages (certainly the last three) I clearly see the hand of Mike Sekowsky.
Here's another batch that came from my recent scanning activities witj a credit question. Mike Roy is credited with the creation of the short running comic strip version of novel detective Nero Wolfe. Original writer Rex Stout also lend his name to it, but it is doubtful he did more than have a look. After a year or so, Roy left the art to others, including Fran Matera and someone called Christiansen, but even before that he didn't do it all by himself. Mike Peppe has been mentioned as an inker and here in these pages (certainly the last three) I clearly see the hand of Mike Sekowsky.
Friday, March 29, 2013
A Tatch Unstringed
Friday Comic Book Day.
Sterling was a small publisher with a small output and an even smaller life span. In 1955 they published six titles (two of which were the same with a title change). Constant factor in all of those was Mike Sekowsky, who was either the packager or a good friend of the publisher. He is the only artist in every title and did just about every cover. As always, he only did the pencilling, with the inker unknown. Sekowsky was a fast and competent artist, who work from the early fourties to the eighties or nneties. His work can be rushed and formulaic, but at it's best he is a very good storyteller. Apart from doing all that comic work, he ghosted many newspaper strips as well.
Here is an ad for some of Sterling's titles, with the cover to one of the most interesting ones, the late fifties code sanetized 'hoor' book Surprise Adventues. I have always liked this cover. The biggest surprise here is the fact that there is no story related to it in the book. So with that, I have another Sekowsky story from the early fifties, that sems to fit the bill.
Friday Comic Book Day.
Sterling was a small publisher with a small output and an even smaller life span. In 1955 they published six titles (two of which were the same with a title change). Constant factor in all of those was Mike Sekowsky, who was either the packager or a good friend of the publisher. He is the only artist in every title and did just about every cover. As always, he only did the pencilling, with the inker unknown. Sekowsky was a fast and competent artist, who work from the early fourties to the eighties or nneties. His work can be rushed and formulaic, but at it's best he is a very good storyteller. Apart from doing all that comic work, he ghosted many newspaper strips as well.
Here is an ad for some of Sterling's titles, with the cover to one of the most interesting ones, the late fifties code sanetized 'hoor' book Surprise Adventues. I have always liked this cover. The biggest surprise here is the fact that there is no story related to it in the book. So with that, I have another Sekowsky story from the early fifties, that sems to fit the bill.
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